It's A Matter Of Respect

It’s A Matter Of Respect

By Jill Jenkins

Recently an elementary school teacher in Bountiful, Utah demanded that a student with an ash cross to commemorate Ash Wednesday, wipe the cross off.  According to  a recent an article in The Salt Lake Tribune since most of her students belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of the Ladder Day Saints, the teacher was unaware of the religious significant of the cross and thought it was only attempt to disrupt her classroom.  The school district placed the teacher on paid leave. Regardless of the teacher’s experience, America has diverse population representing many different religious and ethnic groups all with differing customs and rituals.  All teachers should be trained to be more sensitive and informed about customs and rituals that might differ from their own. 

Belittling and defiling a child’s culture or religious belief dehumanizes the child.  It nullifies his importance as a person and insults not only the child, but also his community and his belief system.  The district rightly took punitive action against the teacher, but needs to take a step further.  Training teachers to identify and react to behaviors, customs and religious beliefs outside their own might prevent a similar situation from occurring again.  Teachers who cannot treat students with differing cultures and belief systems with dignity should be eliminated from the profession. 

Every child has a basic right to feel important and safe in schools.  Every child has a basic right to feel respected.  Respecting a child’s belief system and culture is important for that child to flourish.  If an educator fails to do that, they should no longer be teaching in public school.  

Flying: Helping Students Soar

Flying

Helping Students Soar by Reducing Obstacles:

 Ignorance, Fear, Poverty, Instability and Inattentiveness

By Jill Jenkins

“The more grounded you are the higher you fly”

J. R. Rym

Even though I have been retired for almost five years, I keep contemplating teaching questions like why do some children soar while others flounder.  I recently finished reading Michelle Obama’s book Becoming.   As a child, Michelle was not wealthy or powerful. Her father worked for the water department in Chicago and suffered from MS. Her mother was stayed at home until Michelle was in high school. The family did not own a house, but lived in an upstairs apartment at her great aunt’s house in the south side of Chicago.  Still, Michelle was well grounded in a loving family who had high expectations for their children and provided a rich interactive environment. Her great aunt provided Michelle and her brother with piano lessons, her parents demanded she and her brother speak correctly, and her grandfather’s home was full of music and laughter.  Michelle’s parents sent her brother to a Catholic high school and Michelle to a magnet high school so they could both be challenged intellectually.  As a result, both Michelle and her brother qualified and attended Princeton University. Michelle became an attorney and later a hospital administrator and her brother did equally as well.  As one might expect, both Michelle and her brother flourished. However, not all children are as well grounded and flight for them is difficult. Regardless some like Elon Musk and John Rockefeller succeed despite childhood hardships.  According to Elon Musk in a recent interview on Today Show on NBC, he was bullied at school suffered and from an abusive father.  According to the documentary, The Men Who Built America, John D. Rockefeller, despite having an abusive, alcoholic father, John became unimaginably successful.  What is the recipe to helping a child become successful?

            Students who are grounded with strong financial backing and parents who provide emotional support, high academic expectations, a sense of self-discipline and provide many and varying experiences for their children don’t just fly, they soar.  Students who are grounded with parent who may not be able to afford every experience for their children, but provide emotional support, love, discipline, and high academic expectations still fly high. What about those who do not provide for their children financially, emotionally and have low or not academic or behavioral expectations? These students education will be bereft of many experiences that enhance their learning and they will likely be stagnant.  As educators we don’t worry about the children who are grounded by a strong family love, high expectations for behavior and academic success, and a variety of enhancement activities in a rich, supportive environment.  Whatever we do will only help enhance what the parents are doing, but what about those who do not have this kind of family?  First, some parents are ignorant that children need a rich environment and some lack the resources to provide it.  Second, some parents fear change and fear losing their children.  As a result, they fail to provide resources and activities that the child needs.  Third, some children live in such dysfunctional families that neither emotional support nor financial resources are available for the child’s development.  Fourth, some students lack the self-discipline to endeavor through the intricacies needed to a master difficult learning.  

Some parents are either ignorant of the need to provide a rich environment for their children or are too financially strapped to provide it.  Some parents feel that if they have survived with only a high school diploma or less then their son or daughter certainly doesn’t need one.  One parent told me that he didn’t care if his son failed my class because it was only English, nothing that he would ever use in the real world.  The parents are unaware that to achieve in today’s technological world, students need some post high school education. Many parents fear that their child would be burdened with too much debt.  This is a legitimate fear considering the number of “for profit” institutions that have buried students in debt without providing them with a marketable skill. Some parents may want to provide their children with a rich environment, but can barely keep a roof over their heads and food on the table. These parents are often working two jobs.  For girls the situation is dire.  I remember my own father telling me that I didn’t need a college education because I’d probably get pregnant and never finish college. My mother told me as young as seventh grade student that boys didn’t like girls that were too smart. “Boys never make passes at girls wearing glasses.” I wore glasses and wasn’t interested in that philosophy.  Unfortunately, in many communities, discouraging girls from pursuing an education is still common.  Overcoming this attitude means educating parents and changing the social norms of the community.   Although these students may have the emotional support to be grounded, their families do not or cannot provide the rich, interactive life that child needs to reach his/her full potential.

“Despite her fears she found, the secret to an outstanding

life is risking the fall, for the possibility of flight.”

    Kyra Jackson

Some parents are afraid of change.  It isn’t uncommon for a child who earns a degree and pursues a career to relocate to another state.  Many families are spread across the country because rural communities offer few opportunities. My own daughter moved to New York because careers in journalism in Utah are almost nonexistent.  As a result, some parents are reluctant to encourage their children to pursue interests that might require relocation. Fear of failure, fear of losing connection to loved one and fear of the unknown reduces a child’s flight.

Some students live in such dysfunctional families that the child is never grounded emotionally or financially.  The Showtime television show Shameless depicts such a family where an alcoholic/drug addicted single father raises a family leaving the real parenting to the oldest daughter.  As a teacher I often saw similar families.  One of my former students was a sixteen-year-old boy financially and emotionally supporting four younger siblings because his parents were incarcerated. These children are so overwhelmed that it is unlikely they will succeed.  When an adult assumed responsibility for these children, they were able to succeed and sometimes soar.  For example another of my students was left orphaned when both of her parents died from AIDS, but luckily her godmother materialized and moved her from Puerto Rico to California.  Another student who drug addicted mother disappeared and with the help of an aunt, the three children were reunited with their biological father who provided a home, emotional support and a rich environment for them.  Sometimes the school needs to identify these students and connect them with the resources for a positive adult to help them.

“I was once told that flying involves long house of boredom, interrupted              by moments of extreme fright.”

                                    Franklin W. Dixon

Grit is a necessary component of success. Unfortunately, immediate gratification is the common denominated for many of today’s youth. Television, video games and the Internet have significantly reduced students’ attention spans until many students jump to a new topic if they find learning tedious.  According to Thomas Edison, “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.” To help students succeed educators have to help students learn self-discipline and develop longer attention spans.  Teachers are not just there to entertain, but to help students develop life-long skills to become successful. 

            Instead of closing schools that do not achieve on tests, districts and schools need to analyze why the students are not achieving.  Class size should be reduced to allow teachers to provide emotional support for their students.  Schools should provide a variety of interactive learning experiences including field trips, arts education, music, art and theater lessons, journalism and filmmaking classes.   Students should participate in sports and socially interact in positive ways. They need to eliminate educators or are not supporting students’ emotional needs, maintaining high academic and behavioral standards and expectations for students.  Schools need to offer opportunities to expand their experience and counsel both students and parents about how to get the financial and experiences resources to enhance their education. Whatever the child needs to be successful: art, science or just the belief that they can succeed.  Despite the few shooting stars like Elon Musk and John D Rockefeller who succeeded despite hardships, educators should do all they can do; so all students can “be all they can be.”

Entitled

Entitled

By Jill Jenkins

Ancient Greek spectators gathered at the Colosseum to be entertained by the death of captured slaves in combat or eaten by lions; American pioneers murdered Native Americans stealing their land under the guise of Manifest Destiny; and Australian colonists hunted and murders native aboriginal people for sport.  All felt entitled.  Objectifying people for their own pleasure or profit results in horrific outcomes for the victims while those who feel superior justify their despicable behavior because they feel entitled. Entitlement is a problem that plagues the orderly process of every classroom while destroying victims’ self-esteem, increasing violence and incidents of suicide.

How Does It Begin?

Entitlement begins in early childhood long before these children enter school by parents who fail to establish boundaries.   A toddler will snatch a toy from another child; destroy electronic devices in the home; or a push a younger child who impedes his/her desires.  Entitled children become entitled adults who fail to rise through Maslow’s hierarchy to become self-actualized adults.  Parents often enable children to selfishly bully and abuse other children for their own gain. Unfortunately, this behavior not only negatively impacts the victims, but retards the social development of the child.  All children need to be taught three simple rules to function well in society: first, respect others property; second, respect others; and third, accept responsibility.

Respect Other’s Property

Children need to learn to respect other’s property.  Every classroom has been disturbed by the cries of a student whose books have been intentionally knocked to the floor or an item has been snatched from his hands.  Every classroom has been sent into turmoil when a child’s cellphone or his I-Pad has been stolen. Often such incidents erupt into a fist fight or a loud altercation ending the learning for a period of time. How many students have been intimidated by a student who feels entitled to extort money or forcefully removes money or valuables from a less powerful child?  Children need to be taught at home to keep their hands off anything that doesn’t belong to them.  Although they should be encouraged to share, they need to learn to accept boundaries from another child or an adult.  “No” means “no.”  Parents who enable children to disrespect the rights of property are not doing them a favor.  For example in the 1980’s, I had just purchased a new Fiero. Two girls in a performing group, I sponsored stole my keys and took my car for a joy ride.  When I contacted both parents, one of the mothers told me it was my fault for having a sporting looking car that teenagers might want.  Perhaps, it was my fault for not pressing charges, but I hope the young lady grew up to believe she was not entitled to take anything that she fancied.

Respect Other People

Throughout my years as a teacher, I have stopped many children from fighting only to hear, “It is okay. We’re friends.” I have heard students use racially derogatory words who responded when confronted, “It is okay. We’re friends.” It’s not “okay” to physically or verbally assault another person regardless of the shared relationship.  Similarly, a person is not entitled to physically and verbally batter his/her spouse.  When a child’s abuse of another is ignored, we are teaching him/her that it’s “okay” to abuse the most important people in his/her life resulting in domestic violence.  Often times, these incidents seem small and unimportant, but if the pattern continues, the incidents can grow even more destructive.  For instance, while teaching in a high school, I encountered a shy, unassuming girl, Doris, who worked as my student-aide.  Doris filed papers and organized my folders.  She was a gem; responsible and polite.  Atypical for Doris, she missed a few days of school, so concerned I consulted the counseling office.  The school’s social worker told me that Doris had been cornered by six young men as she walked home from school.  They taunted her about her physical appearance before pushing her to the ground.  One of the boys jumped upon her and tried to remove her clothing, touching her inappropriately.  When a passing motorist spooked them, the boys ran off leaving Doris bruised and humiliated.  Despite the fact that all of the boys involved were students enrolled at the high school, the school had decided not to pursue action against them, because it had happened off campus and they hadn’t actually raped the girl. The boys returned to school unimpeded. Doris, who was too humiliated and frightened, was told to stay home.  The school was punishing the victim and not the perpetrators.

Accept Responsibility

The final social skill students need to acquire to be successful is learning to take responsibility for their actions.  Although the incident took place off campus, the administrators should have held the boys responsible for their behavior.  They should have all been held accountable because they were not entitled to abuse others for their own entertainment.  I have known principals who use their authority to help students learn to be responsible. In one middle school where I taught for a few decades, a group of ninth grade boys were taunting a seventh grade intellectually challenged boy. One of the older boys tripped the younger boy who fell into a classroom while a group of older students watched laughing. The incident was recorded on the school’s security camera.  The principal not only held the boy accountable who tripped the younger student, but also the boys who stood by laughing and making no attempt to stop the bullying.  My student was one of those boys.  To my surprise, his father told me how glad he was that the principal had suspended his son, because he was glad his son was learning that his behavior was wrong and he needed to accept responsibility for not stopping the bullying.  Treating others as objects for your own amusement is just as bad as tripping the boy. 

As educators we teach more than our academic subject.  We teach students to be good citizens.  Good citizens respect property, respect people (even when they are different from us) and accept responsibility when they are wrong.  Entitled: students are entitled to a safe, pleasant learning environment where they feel no one will hurt them physically or emotionally or take their personal belongings.  They should feel safe that others won’t coerce them into cheating from them or extort money or answers from them.  Those who feel entitled to hurt others or take what doesn’t belong to them need to be held accountable or they will never become truly responsible citizens.

The Power of Teachers

The Power of Teachers

By Jill Jenkins

Recently on Facebook a number of teachers complained that if only the administrators did anything, their school would run more smoothly, but as a retired teachers I have experienced a variety of situations where teachers identified a problem in a school, brainstormed solutions, developed a workable plan and presented it to administrators.  The administrators, in turn, empowered the teachers to enact the idea and the school improved as a result.  Teachers have power if they choose to use it.   Here are six examples that I have personally experienced the power of teachers enacting their own solutions to problems.

1. Hall Patrol

At one inner-city high school where I taught, so many students were in the hall during class time not only cutting class, but smoking cigarettes, and other substances and making drug deals that one science teacher used a fire extinguisher to spray a group of smoking students sitting on the staircase next to his room. Needless to say, he got into a bit of hot water.  The incident led to a group of teachers developing the idea of “Hall Patrol.”  Each teacher gave up one consultation period per week to patrol the hall encouraging students to get to class and writing up any students in violation of the rules.  The administrators were expected to follow through on the referrals.  Teachers worked in pairs because one elderly teacher had been hospitalized after a student assaulted him, beating him with his own cane.  The results were startling.  Most of the students returned to class without incidents and faculty member who rarely interacted had an opportunity to get to know each other making the school have a more cohesive faculty.  Occasionally a student would test the system.  On one occasion, my partner, a tall, well-respected shop teacher and I encountered two brothers selling a bag of marijuana in the hall.  Their buyer sprinted away, but the two defiantly passed the bag over my head to the waiting brother before laughing that we didn’t know their names and since teachers were not allowed to touch students, there was nothing we could do.  We went to the assistant principal’s office identified the two with a yearbook and let the school police officer apprehend the two.  I guess the joke was on them.  Teachers are not powerless.

2. Art and Trash Pickup

At another inner-city high where I taught, the problem were two-fold, each day the school had to be repainted to destroy the gang related graffiti sprawled across the buildings and the administration was so busy with larger behavior problems that taking care of small infractions like disrespecting teachers or childish behavior were impossible to address.  The teachers felt that if they small infractions were addressed, the big problems would be reduced: nip it in the bud.  The solutions developed by the teachers and proposed to the administrators were two-fold.  First, promising art students were selected by the art teacher to design and paint murals on the school walls.  Since some of these artists were the same nocturnal graffiti artists, the staff felt they would want their creations protected and the graffiti would be reduced.  The second part included trash pickup.  Students who acted in some inappropriate manner were assigned one hour of after school clean up.  Wearing a bright orange vest, each student was given a large garbage sack and escorted around the campus to pick up paper for an hour.  When it was raining (which was rare because it was southern California) they cleaned desks or scraped gum.  The most important part of the punishment was the students talked to the teachers and they processed what they had done and why it was wrong.  Incidents of inappropriate behavior were reduced dramatically and the graffiti was almost eliminated.

3. Study Help

Teachers at two very different schools, designed similar solutions to the same problem: one inner-city high school and one affluent suburban junior high school.  The teachers in both schools recognized that many of the families had either single parent households where parents worked long hours to financially support their children or households were both parents worked.  Either way, parents had little time to help their children with homework or help a struggling student.  In both schools, teachers approached the administration to donate time before school or during their lunch hour to tutor students who were struggling without pay.  Naturally the administration acquiesced and some struggling students were given much needed help.

3. No Zeros Allowed

Two math teachers at my former school developed a program called “No Zeros Allowed” after attending a workshop. The problem was that assignments in a math class are designed to support sequential learning.  When students chose to not complete assignments, they impaired their own ability to learn concepts taught later.  Since work completed late was reduced in point value, students did not feel compelled to complete missing work.  The principal loved the idea, (Maybe because he was a former math teacher or because he felt students need to understand that learning to be responsible is also important.)  Teachers would refer students who had missing assignments to the math teacher in charge.  The math teachers would assign these students to “Lunch School."  The students would receive a call ten minutes before their lunch and were escorted to the cafeteria to receive a sack lunch and taken to the math teachers’ rooms.  There they would be given a packet of missing assignments from all of their classes and the guidance of a math teacher to complete the assigned work while eating lunch.  It was a little extra work for the teachers and the essays some of the students created were substandard, but students began to become more responsible about completing assigned work.  They only change I would make is to include teachers from a variety of disciplines to tutor the students. 

5. Teacher Advisory Revisited

The administration at the junior high school where I used to teach instituted Teacher Advisory, twenty minutes three times a week where students participated in activities from the affective domain. The activities were far too juvenile for the ninth grade students who often ridiculed them.  While I was evaluating another junior high for the state, I witnessed a program that I thought would benefit our students so I brought the idea to my principal.   At the other school, students were either compelled to go to a study hall to make up tests or assignments or if they were all caught up, they could attend an enrichment activity.  My principal loved it, so I encouraged him to talk to the other principal.  The next year, he implemented the program.  Just as the other principal told me in the beginning there were problems, but our principal had learned a lot from the other school’s mistakes.  First, teachers had to identify, students who had failed to complete assignments or tests, and request that they go to appropriate location.  These students received a ticket and were escorted to their assigned location before the other students were allowed to choose an activity.  Second, the teachers in each discipline and in each grade level had to decide before hand who would be teaching enrichment activities and who would be helping students who needed help with missing assignments or tests.  Third, a huge mistake the administration made was telling students who were caught up to go wherever they wanted.  Some of them wanted to go to the local service station and buy a treat.   To solve this, teachers handed out tickets and students selected the enrichment activity they would attend.  Unfortunately some activities were more appealing to students than others.  I taught an improvisational theater class that was overwhelmed with students and my neighbor taught a ukulele class that attracted about ten students.  Regardless, the program proved much more fruitful than the previous program.  Students were motivated to get their work in and those who didn’t were held accountable.  

6. Catch Someone Doing Something Right

My former husband went to an administrative workshop and heard an idea where businessmen recognized employees doing their job well: Catch Someone Doing Something Right.  That would work with students I thought so I brought the idea to my principal.  She loved it.  She printed out little cards and teachers were to present a card with a description written on it of the child’s behavior.  The principal herself and her secretary would congratulate the child and present him/her with a piece of candy.  The next principal took it a step further and put the child’s name into a drawing for a fabulous prize at the end of the week.  The program was successful for two reasons: first, it forces teachers to focus on the positive; second, it rewards the students who are doing the right thing, rather than give all of the attention to the students who are behaving badly. Attention is what students want.  As a result, the student who misbehaves learns he/she can get more attention by behaving appropriately.  

Conclusion

The next time you feel powerless as a teacher, just develop an idea to solve a problem and present the plan to the administration.  You might be surprised how receptive your over-worked administrator is.  Don’t expect more pay or recognition; just do it for the children.

Defeating the Enabler

Defeating the Enabler

By Jill Jenkins

Most parents want their children to become well-educated, kind, responsible adults; as a result, most parents insist their children do their homework diligently, treat others with respect and dignity and behave in an ethical manner. These parents monitor their children’s study practices, correct their children when they mistreat others and insist their children accept the consequences if they are caught cheating and fabricating stories.  For example, I have had parents who both appeared in my classroom after school with their child in tow to force their child to confess to cheating, to demand that the child lose all credit for the fraudulent assignment and to demand that the child re-create the assignment and receive no credit.  These parents were convinced that it was more important for their child to learn to behave ethically while he was a child, than to face the consequences of dishonest behavior as an adult.  This is example of not only good parenting, but also good teaching.  I applaud these parents, as do most.  However, they are most parents, not all parents.  What should teachers do to help the children of parents who lie, plagiarized and support their children when they lie, plagiarize and cheat?  How do schools combat the enablers?

Why do parents enable their children?  What effect does it have on the children?

The problem begins in grade school, when a father, an engineer or architect, builds his third grade child’s model of Little House In The Big Woods because he doesn’t want to be embarrassed by the shoddy craftsmanship of an eight year old. This makes the child feel incompetent.  By seventh grade, he is asking teachers for copies of all upcoming assignments so he can complete them or his wife is writing all of the child’s essays.  The parents are focused on the grade and not the learning.  The parents are focused on how the student’s achievement reflects on them.  All of this diminishes the child’s sense of worth. He or she doesn’t believe he or she is capable of achieving without the parent’s help.

Not only does it affect the child’s self esteem, it makes him believe that rules are for other children which can only lead to morally and socially destructive behavior as an adult.  For instance, one student chose to leave campus to visit a nearby mini-mart to purchase a treat where he is apprehended by the school’s resource officer for being truant.  The mother feels he is wrongfully being charged with a truancy because “if the resource officer had minded his own business, he would have returned to class and only been a little tardy.” These kinds of justifications not only erodes the child’s ability to develop a sense of responsibility, they are not uncommon.

There are countless other examples of parent behavior that erodes a child’s ability to take responsibility.  One parent wrote all of her children’s essays.  One parent plagiarized a research paper for her son from the internet because he was too busy with extra-curricular activities to write or perhaps plagiarize it himself. One mother complained that her daughter should be able to write a book report for a book she received credit for two years prior because this time she really read it. One parent couldn’t understand why her child wasn’t receiving credit for a practice chart that the child had forged on in front of the teacher. One parent didn’t understand why her son could not get credit for a test after he was caught copying answers from the student sitting next to him.  The list is endless.

What should educators do?

Some teachers say, "do nothing." Choose your battles.  If these parents lack any hope for their children, they will become their parents' problem when they are adults.  They will become a problem for everyone.  Is it fair to the student?  Is it fair to the student who earns a grade through personal and honest hard work?  Is it fair to society?  Every child deserves to learn the skills to become a self-reliant, responsible adult even when their parents don’t help them. 

Schools and teachers need to create rules and consequences that are consistently and fairly enforced.  If a child cheats in one class in a school, he should know that he will receive the same consequence if he cheats in another class in the school.  Parents and students should be given copies of the rules and the consequences.  All of the teachers and all of the administrators need to enforce the rules in the same way and explain both the broken rule and the consequence to the parent and the child.  All of the teachers and the administrators should be held accountable for consistently and fairly enforcing the rules.  At first the students and their parents will balk, but if the rules are consistently enforced, the child will develop a sense of responsibility and a sense of self-worth.  Everyone wins.  The parents might improve with parenting classes on enabling. 
 

The Effects of Hiding With Black Cats

The Effects of Hiding With Black Cats

By Jill Jenkins

            Over 60 years ago at the height of the Cold War, I was born in a town nestled in the Rocky Mountains to over protective parents and nervous aunts and uncles.  Attempting to protect my siblings and me from a dangerous world, they taught us many useful lessons and some not so useful lessons based on superstitious beliefs and fear. Since the fear of the Cold War was ever present, they told us to escape into the mountains and hide if the Soviet Union ever invaded.  They taught us to follow the rivers downstream if we were ever lost.  They taught us to snare rabbits, birds and catch a fish using our shoelaces and readily available to willows.  They taught us to carve whistles or create bows and arrows from those same willows.  They taught us which berries and insects were safe to eat and which water was safe to drink.  They taught us how to construct a bed and a lean-to from branches and logs.  They taught us to create fires and knives from bits of flint.  They also taught us a ritual chant with appropriate hand gestures if a black cat ever crossed our path: “Ring around the cats ass, dot, dot, dot.”

    Likewise the knowledge we obtained in schools was both useful and nonsense.  We learned to read, write and decipher math, but, also, to duck and cover under our desks to protect us from nuclear proliferation.  Surprisingly, our generation to the shock and dismay of our parents’ generation eventually rejected the ideas they had tried to instill in us about women’s rights, racial prejudice and economic equality. We had learned the power of nuclear warfield and the lack of power of the black cat.  (That is lucky for me and my black cat, Lenny, who has lived with me for 15 years.)

            The lunacy of teaching children lies and half-truths to keep them safe only leads to resentment and anger.  The world is a safer place when everyone is presented with facts to make rational decisions.  Still I hear my more conservative friends complain that the public schools are teaching their grandchildren about global warming, encouraging recycling and promoting the Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, all of which they believed are liberal ideas created to brainwash their children and to make the population feel good about their attempts to solve problems.  To them I say, "Poppycock."  Factual based education will help students develop rational thinking skills to solve problems that are yet unknown.  Teaching students religious based and politically motivated hogwash will dilute their ability to think just like my dear aunt’s ritual of protecting us from evil black cats.  

           While I was teaching, there was a push from some parent groups to prevent teachers from assigning research papers and projects.  Parents felt that all knowledge should be memorized and regurgitated on tests, but learning involves examining facts and differing arguments and drawing conclusions from them.  The world needs a generation of rational problem solvers, not robots.  There is no hiding in the mountains or using black cat rituals to protect the world from global warming or the annihilation of endangered plants and animals.  Hiding under our desks never protected us from a nuclear holocaust and neither will it protect our children and grandchildren from lead polluted drinking water or air filled with polluted plumes pumped from oil refineries and factories. Finding solutions can only happen if the next generation is armed with the ability to make rational decisions.

The Importance of Affirmative Action and Access to Financial Aid

The Importance of Affirmative Action and Access to Financial Aid

By Jill Jenkins

     When I was a child, my mother told me that women had three choices in life: to find a husband, get married and raise his children, to learn to type and take shorthand and become a secretary, or to become a factory worker. My mother’s limited view of the world made it difficult for her to imagine a life beyond her neighborhood. I chose to go to college and become a teacher, an opportunity that was only afforded me because of Lyndon Johnson’s dream of “A Great Society,” a system of low interest loans, the National Defense Loan and later the National Direct Loan available to low income students. Today’s students are often buried in loans because student loans have become privatized. During my college years, students who taught in Title One schools had their loans forgiven.  Since my loan had only a three percent interest rate, I paid it off as scheduled.  Racial discrimination limit many minority students. To alleviate this John F. Kennedy signed an executive order in 1961 creating Affirmative Action forcing universities and colleges to integrate.  Today, some Ivy League Schools often select wealthy African American students to make their quota instead of selecting students who lack the resources to attend college.   What is fair?  Even if the country added a financial component to Affirmative Action, more impoverished White students live in areas with better schools than those of impoverished African American students.  Better schools means better prepared students.  To level the playing field, a combination of Affirmative Action and more grants and affordable loans should be instituted. American poor need more grants, low interest loans and Affirmative Action to widen the view of all of our youth.  Unfortunately, like my mother, many children’s view of the world are limited.  What happens to these students is best described in Langston Hughes’ poem “Harlem:”

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up like

A raisin in the sun

Or fester like a sore—

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over—

Like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it sags

Like a heavy load?

Or does it explode? 

What I discovered by teaching in a variety of different socio-economic levels is our schools are not a level playing field.  Students from economically deprived groups, students from different ethnic or racial groups and from different cultures cannot compete fairly for enrollment in any college or university (let alone an Ivy League School); as a result, both adequate financial aide and Affirmative Action needs to be available.  What I have learned is students who have no hope of financially supporting their families through legitimate means turn to crime.  What I have learned is both males and females need a strong education to have access to more fulfilling careers and the greater opportunities for financial stability.  (Let’s face it, marriage is never guaranteed to last forever, nor does it always provide economic stability.)  What I have learned is people who are well educated are happier and live more economically secure lives. As a result, they are more likely to become a more involved citizen. 

            President Trump’s talk of dismantling Affirmative Action could have catastrophic effects.  First, intelligence isn’t limited to one socio-economic group or one racial group.  By limiting opportunities, America would be wasting some of the most creative and innovative minds.  Second, providing real hope and opportunity, reduces an individual’s likelihood of becoming involved in crime; thus, reducing the strongholds gangs have on some neighborhoods. Third, education increases the potential that an individual will achieve economic stability, a happy, healthy view of government and a higher likelihood he will become an active voting citizen.  This means less likely to become “a raisin in the sun”, a rotting sore or “ exploding” with violence. 

            If all students were competing on a level playing field, perhaps there would be no need for Affirmative Action or Financial Aid, but the truth is they aren’t.  I have taught in affluent schools where students live in houses filled with books and computers, their families travel the world, and their lives are enriched with private coaches, voice lessons, music lessons and they participate in an assortment of academic, artistic and athletic enrichment activities.  Some attend private schools whose classmates come from the wealthiest families and the academic demands far exceed public schools.  I’ve taught in inner city public schools where a student often works eight to ten hours a night after school in a minimum wage job to help support his/her family.  One student whose parents were both incarcerated went to school full-time, and worked full-time to support himself and four younger siblings.  These students are not lazy.  They are over-coming huge hurdles. Money can buy almost anything in America.  One year I was charged with selecting and preparing the graduation speakers. An assistant principal presented me with the name of one student and told me to make certain she was selected as a speaker because her parents had offered to donate money for the sports team. This was a public high school.  I could have followed the order, but instead created an evaluation rubric and selected three faculty members and three students to judge those seeking speaking positions.  Then, to insure a fair contest, I had the class officers tabulate the scores.  The corruption of money is everywhere.  The racial prejudice in this country makes their difficulty even more arduous.  Racial discrimination is even more prevalent. As a drama teacher, I took heat from my principal for casting Alice in Alice in Wonderland with an African American student, because some parents complained that she did not "fit" the part.   As a debate coach in Southern California, my debate team was comprised of many African-American and Hispanic students.  I would remind them that it was not enough to be as good as their adversary, they had to be undeniably better.  Unfortunately, in American, people see color before they hear what the students are saying. 

            When thinking about the effects of lack of hope, I am reminded of Charles Dickens’ novel Oliver Twist.  In the book, Fagin has collects a group of homeless children and trains them as pickpockets in order to exploit them for his own financial gain.  To persuade young Oliver to join their illegal trade, Fagin employs Charlie Bates and the Artful Dodger to testify to the advantages. Like the Artful Dodger, peer pressure and the lack of hope encourage some students to become involved in crime to better themselves.  These students believe that their only future is a part time minimum wage job with no benefits or welfare may like Charlie Bates and the Artful Dodger believe that crime is a better alternative and holds more self-respect than allowing his family to become homeless and hungry.  As a result, they steal, sell drugs and participate in gang activities. Prejudice and economic insecurity land more people in prison than college. The United States has the highest number of incarcerations in the world for a reason.  That same child would become a productive member of society if he/she were give the opportunity to get a good education, and a well paying job. More of those incarcerated are members of minority groups.   Affirmative action could lower the crime rate and the incarcerations, saving everyone money.

            Finally our founding fathers believed that access to a free public education could create a more enlightened voter.  In today’s world to be successful, a K-12 education is not enough.  If we want an enlightened citizen who feels compelled to participate as a thoughtful voter, we need to provide affordable, opportunities for students of every racial and economic group.  People, who feel powerless in a society, do not participate in it.

            Affirmative action and financial assistance is important.  I feel that President Trump’s view of the world is as narrow as my mother’s.  He believes everyone should accept his/her birthplace in society.  Some may say that only the most qualified should be accepted to our colleges and universities; however, those with the money to afford a private education for their children or donate a million dollars would have a disproportionate advantage.  Intelligence and the advantages of wealth is not the same thing.  Creating a wealthy elite with exclusive access to higher education is not the America our fore fathers imagined. Educational opportunities provide those downtrodden with hope and a pathway to economic securities, a more meaningful and happy life while reducing crime.  Education prepares people to be responsible citizens.  Affirmative actions and financial assistance provide opportunities for a brighter future.